Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-03-25
DIR PRISON DIRECTORS.
wrestling with Imaginary Evils at the
States Expense.

! wrestling WIN lmasludfy Evils at tnt
States Expense.
| EDS. RECORD UNION: Before the Board Of
Prison Directors agitates itself into brain
fever, trying to take prison labor out Ofiniu.
| rious competition with free labor, suggest
that they find out whether such competition
really exists. Before they bring on them
selves softening of the brain searching for a
remedy, would suggest that they be certain
that there is something TO cure.
As fact. competition between prison and
free labor does not exist to any appreciable
extent No injury results from the en-
ployment of prison labor, and all this her
aided announcement of the owlish consid-
Grafton of how to avoid competition that
practically does not exist is simply pub
LEGATION of the arrant stupidity or political
demagogy of the participators.
Take the furniture department in the
prison as an example. That was consid-
cred the most injurious, and was first or
dered closed. Now California only manu-
features a small percentage of the furni-
ture she uses. Every overland freight
train brings furniture from the East
Cheap transportation has enabled the East
to compete with us, and she fixes the
prices. The whole United States is in
competition. Our State Prison employs
about 100 men in the furniture business !;
but, as prison labor equals in results only
so per cent of free labor, these men only
count in the labor market as fifty men.
There are employed in the furniture bust
ness in this country as wage earners $4,000
men, and it is with this 900 that our fifty
prisoners are brought into competition.
For every full hand in our prison there are
nd full han1c outside Tho
portion is ridiculously small The employ
ment or non employment of one man in
thousand will produce no perceptible effect
in the labor market. The mere statement
of the proportion that prison labor bears to
free labor shows that the whole talk is
baseless and senseless, and the Prison Di-
rectors ought to say so.
The actual proportion is smaller than
these figures show. The amount of furni-
ture made at the prison is valued at about
$40, 900 per annum. The furniture with
which it comes in competition is valued at
about $70,000000. For every dollars
worth manufactured at the prison 81 200
worth are manufactured outside. And yet
labor agitators and the majority of the
Prison Directors would have us believe
that this one dollars worth of furniture
put up for sale has ruined the market,
lowed up the margin of profit on the whole
81 700 with which it came into COMPETE
ton The manufacture of one-seventeen-
hundredth more or less of any article never
affected the market, and everybody not in
huenced by labor demagogy knows it.
Instead of the closing of the furniture de-
partment operating to the benefit of the
men of this State. the opposite is the case
Prison made furniture is chiefly frame
work and is upholstered in San Francisco,
giving employment to a large number of
men. When frames are no longer made at
San Quentin San Francisco upholsterers
will be thrown out of employment. The
East will provide US with furniture because
she can do so more cheaply than we can
make it, and as furniture comes from there
quite generally already upholstered, these
men in San Francisco and elsewhere en-
ployed at that work will remain out of en-
ployment or seek some other trade. Injury
instead of benefit must result, and the
Board of Prison Directors will be Leld re-
sponsible.
This farce about free and prison labor
has become nauseating. The public pa
tience is exhausted. Something more is
expected of our Prison Directors than is
being realized. They ought not to be pup
pets to bow and bob at the pulling of
strings by the Federated Unions of San
Francisco. Honesty demands that they con-
duct the prison business in an economical
and profitable manner. and decent re-
spect for themselves demands that they
pursue business methods and cease to allow
themselves to be the guy and laughing
stock of business men.
1t is due one member of the Board, w.
G. Hendricks, to say that he opposes any
further schemes for the unemployment
of prisoners, or for rendering useless and
valueless the expensive plant already upon
the ground. 1t remains to be seen how
far he will be able to stiffen up the other
members of the Board to performance
of their duty. E. T. S.